18/03/08 "ICH"
-- - Safa Abu Saif, a 12-year-old Palestinian
girl, was visiting a friend’s apartment when the
bullet fired from an Israeli rifle slammed into
her chest, punching a gaping exit wound in her
back. No ambulance could reach her because of
the fighting. Safa died in her father’s arms
three hours after being shot.

Danielle Shafi,
a 5-year-old Israeli girl, was killed by the
bullet fired from a Palestinian rifle as her
mother combed her hair in the child’s upstairs
bedroom. Drenched in the blood of her wound,
Danielle slowly stopped breathing and died in
her mother’s arms minutes after being shot.

According to a
United Nation’s report, 971 Palestinian and
Israeli children were killed between September
2000—the beginning of the second intifada—and
July 2007. Of those destroyed children, 854 were
Palestinian. The intifada and the dying
continue.

Safa and
Danielle are two of the children whose lives the
evangelical political action committee,
Christians United for Israel, are willing to
sacrifice on the alter of their fundamentalist
eschatology in the hope of bringing about
Armageddon and the Second Coming of Jesus
Christ.

Pastor John
Hagee, televangelist to 99 million viewers and
pastor of the 18,000-member Cornerstone Church
in San Antonio, Texas, established the CUFI in
2005 following the publication of his book, “The
Jerusalem Countdown: A Warning to the World.”
Hagee envisions CUFI as the Christian version
the American Israel Public Affairs Committee,
the powerful pro-Israel lobby whose political
clout has a significant influence on U.S.
foreign policy in the Middle East.

The late Molly
Ivins, a Texas political commentator and author,
described Hagee as a “pre-millennial
dispensationalist, whose theology focuses on
selected apocalyptic passages of the Book of
Revelation.” In 1998, Hagee teamed up with
Christian filmmakers to produce, “Vanished in
the Twinkling of an Eye,” a docudrama about the
tribulations following the Rapture.

Despite Pastor
Hagee’s obvious interest in eschatology, he
insists that CUFI’s support for Israel has
nothing to do with end time prophecy. But in an
unguarded moment in the intimate confines of his
50,000 sq. ft. multimedia chapel, Hagee set the
truth free, “The judgment of the nations is
going to happen as soon as Christ returns to
earth. As soon as he sets up his throne on the
Temple Mount in Jerusalem, he’s going to rule
the world with a rod of iron. That means he’s
going to make the ACLU do what he wants them to
… We will live by the law of god, and no other
law.”

The problem with
Hagee’s version of the truth is the fact that
the Temple Mount is Islam’s third most sacred
site, upon which sits the al-Aqsa mosque and the
Dome of the Rock, the oldest extant Islamic
structure in the world.

According to
Judaism, the Mount is where the final Third
Temple will be rebuilt before the coming of the
Jewish Messiah. Unfortunately for CUFI, the
Second Coming of Jesus is on hold until the
temple’s completion, and that cannot happen
until Islam is destroyed—Hagee’s holy grail.

Predictably
then, the good pastor opposes any peace plan to
end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, supports
Israel’s persecution and “imprisonment” of 1.5
million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and
advocates pre-emptive nuclear strikes against
Iran. John Hagee lives, and CUFI exists, to
light the fires of the Apocalypse using Israel
as the match.

To get a candid
look at CUFI and its members, journalist Max
Blumenthal took his cameras to the CUFI’s
Washington-Israel Summit held last July in the
nation’s capital.

His video,
Rapture Ready: The Unauthorized Christians
United for Israel Tour opens with
Blumenthal cornering disgraced former Republican
House Majority Leader Tom Delay and asking him
how important the Second Coming is in his
support of Israel. The “Hammer” replied,
“Obviously, it is what I live for. Really, I
hope it comes tomorrow. Obviously, we need to be
connected to Israel to enjoy the Second Coming
of Christ.”

Blumenthal
mingled with the 4,500 CUFI rank and file
attending the Summit and asked their opinion on
Armageddon and the identity of the Antichrist:

Q. “Are you
looking forward to Armageddon?”

A. “I’m looking
forward to Armageddon and the cleansing of the
earth.”

Q. “Who is the
Antichrist?”

A. “He will be a
man of peace. So he will be one who has promoted
peace for many years. The one who forces Israel
into a peace treaty with the Arabs is the
Beast.”

A. “Another
reason that we support Israel is that we have a
common enemy, the Muslims. We are fighting what
is behind the Muslim people, which is Satan.
Satan is actually the one who is trying to
destroy the human race.”

After asking
Pastor Hagee the “wrong” question during a
Summit news conference, Blumenthal and his crew
were escorted out of the building by off-duty
police officers.

John Hagee is
not without fawning friends in Washington.
Presidential hopeful John McCain made a campaign
stop at the Summit and admitted to the audience
that, “It’s very hard trying to do the Lord’s
work in the city of Satan …” House Minority Whip
Roy Blunt followed McCain to the podium and
assured the faithful that “This is a mission,
this is a vision that I believe is a vision for
God’s time.” Senator Joe Lieberman was there and
described Pastor Hagee as an “Ish Elokim,” a man
of God.

Never one to be
left out of a well-attended Christian Right
convocation, President Bush sent his best
wishes, “I appreciate CUFI members … for your
passion and dedication to enhancing the
relationship between the United States and
Israel. Your efforts set a shining example for
others …”

Cultivating his
friendship with the man who believes the U.S.
will be in Iraq for the next one hundred years,
Pastor Hagee endorsed—and hugged—John McCain for
president at a news conference held at the
Cornerstone Church. Senator McCain graciously
accepted, saying, “I’m very honored by Pastor
John Hagee’s endorsement today,” When asked
about Hagee’s extensive writings on Armageddon,
McCain responded that “all I can tell you is
that I am very proud to have Pastor John Hagee’s
support.’’

Considering the
above, the following should not need to be said.
Pastor Hagee’s right-wing Jewish allies will do
well to consider that after Islam is destroyed
and the Temple rebuilt and Jesus comes and
raptures all “true believers,” all
non-believers—including Jews—will be hunted down
and converted or destroyed … that is, those few
who survived the nuclear holocaust that was
prayed for and schemed for by the “Ish Elokim”
and the CUFI.

In the
meanwhile,
Palestinian and
Israeli children will continue to die
singularly or in small groups by the bullets and
the bombs and the fire send their way on the
wings of CUFI’s prayerful machinations.

Robert
Weitzel is a freelance writer and contributing
editor to Media With a Conscience.
His essays regularly appear in The
Capital Times in Madison, WI. He has
been published in the Milwaukee Journal
Sentinel, Skeptic Magazine,
Freethought Today, and on
popular liberal websites. He can be contacted
at:
robertweitzel@mac.com

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